The US Senate on Monday passed an omnibus competitiveness bill that includes provisions to enhance military, cultural and diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but obstacles remain in having the bill enacted into law.
The Senate approved the America COMPETES Act by a 68-28 margin after the House of Representatives passed an act of the same name by a 222-210 vote on Feb. 4.
However, the bill approved by the Senate replaced the original content of the America COMPETES Act with that of the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which the senate passed on June 8 last year.
Photo: Reuters
Both bills are aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the US — in particular against China — with a significant emphasis on boosting scientific and engineering innovation, research and development, and production of advanced electronic components in the US.
There was considerable overlap between the USICA and the original contents of the America COMPETES Act, including on regional strategies to counter China.
However, substantive differences also exist in several areas, including economic diplomacy, strategic and diplomatic matters, and multilateral strategies to bolster US power.
The House is not expected to agree to the latest version approved by the Senate, meaning that the two bodies will have to negotiate a reconciliation of the bills they passed into a final version that can get 60 votes in the Senate and pass a divided House.
With respect to Taiwan, both bills generally reiterate US support for Taiwan, recognizing Taiwan as a “vital part” of the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy and a vital national security interest of the US.
They require the US to reinforce its commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances,” and conduct regular transfers of “defense articles” to enhance Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, in particular its efforts to develop and integrate asymmetric capabilities.
They both call on the US secretary of state to consider establishing a US-Taiwan cultural exchange foundation “dedicated to deepening ties between the future leaders of Taiwan and the United States,” and contain lengthy provisions on a Taiwan fellowship program to allow government officials to go to Taiwan for two years to learn Chinese.
However, there are key differences.
The House-backed bill calls for negotiations on renaming Taiwan’s representative office in the US — the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office — while the Senate version does not.
It also includes a Taiwan Peace and Stability Act, which focuses specifically on enhancing deterrence measures in the Taiwan Strait, and a Taiwan International Solidarity Act that are not found in the Senate bill.
The Senate bill does call for ending the practice of referring to Taiwan’s government as the “Taiwan authorities” and for ending restrictions on officials of the two sides to interact directly with each other or on Taiwan to display symbols of the Republic of China’s sovereignty.
However, it says these appeals should not be “construed as entailing restoration of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) or altering the United States Government’s position on Taiwan’s international status.”
No similar disclaimer is found in the House bill.
In another key area of the bills, involving incentives for the production of semiconductors in the US, the two bills offer similar language, but the House bill has been described as more aggressive in creating a new Supply Chain Resilience Program.
Overseas suppliers, such as Taiwan semiconductor giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, have lobbied for foreign manufacturers to benefit from the measure, but it was not immediately clear if the two bills differed on this point.
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
Noting that researchers have found that 85 China-based blogs and accounts were spreading a conspiracy theory that a US “meteorological weapon” had caused recent fires in Hawaii, political observers in Taiwan said the nation also needs to be vigilant of Beijing employing similar disinformation campaigns against Taiwan. The untrue content concerning Hawaii was written in 15 languages and disseminated across a myriad of platforms including Facebook, YouTube and X, a report published in Gizmodo said, citing NewsGuard, an online news content ranker. The effort represented the most expansive Chinese informational operation to be uncovered by NewsGuard to date, Gizmodo said. The conspiracy theory
RSS